In Genesis 18, YHWH visits Abraham. He is not just a human apparition, for he eats butter, milk and meat. Because Abraham and Sarah can’t have children, God announces a miracle for them. They will have a son.

Elizabeth and Zechariah had a similar experience with their son, John the Baptist. It was a miracle to have a child at their age.

Jesus’ birth was also a miracle. For only a virgin birth can be a sign from God, as predicted in Isaiah 7:14: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”

If God could come to Abraham as a man, he can come to us through Jesus. Immanuel means: “God with us”.

When Jesus was talking to the scribes, they asked him: “Have you seen Abraham?” (John 8:57). Jesus had said before: “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” (verse 56). It was clear to the listeners that Jesus was saying that He was the third man who appeared to Abraham and who is referred to as God (YHWH).

God says in Genesis 18:14: “Is anything too hard [impossible] for the Lord YHWH?”

Messiah images in the Torah

• God seeks us – Adam where are you?
• The possibility of a choice – Two trees in the Garden of Eden
• Neediness instead divinity – A new view
• God’s master plan  – Salvation through a human being
• A divine clothing – God acts
• A world upside down – Kai and Abel
• Living in the presence of God – Enoch
• God is calling – Noah
• A king-priest like Melchizedek
• God visits Abraham
• Life through a sacrifice – Isaac
• The ladder to heaven – Jacob
• New identity from Jacob to Israel
• Messiah Ben Joseph – Joseph the son of Jacob
• Shiloh, whom all nations will serve – Blessing on Judah
• Moses, the prototype of the Saviour
• References to Jesus in Moses
• The Passover Lamb
• The pillar of cloud and fire
• God wants to be with us – The tabernacle / The temple
• The snake on a pole – An image of a new beginning
• The rock in the desert – Faith is not a method
• A prophet greater than Moses
  
• A star from Jacob – Bileam